Grant Park Music Festival

Broadway Sings America – Grant Park Music Festival – July 23, 2026

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Giving Mel Brooks’s History of the World a run for its money, Broadway Sings America covered an historical period of approximately 225 years, in 19 songs, before finishing with a 100+ year-old topic from a current show that is still relevant in today’s political atmosphere.

Host and singer Scott Coulter provided interesting commentary before each selection and only made one glaring mistake when, despite that fact that he lives in New York, he said that the Statue of Liberty is on Ellis Island. Someone back stage must have said something to him, as next time out he corrected it to Liberty Island (duh).

Coulter sang beautifully, as did all the performers, including the Grant Park Chorus, though I found it amusing that his two big solos, Tomorrow and Maria, both contain lyrics where the title is repeated over and over again. If he does have memory problems, that probably helped.

Blaine Krauss’s big moment, on the other hand, was his rendition of My Shot from Hamilton, a five and a half minute song that, while it also repeats the title a lot, has about a million lyrics in rapid-fire succession. He was flawless.

Tiffany Mann singularly graced us with Everything’s Coming Up Roses and I Know Where I’ve Been.

Jessica Hendy won the award for most costume changes, which was a reflection of the range of styles she displayed with her crystal-clear voice, and precise stage movements, in singing everything ranging from Burn to All That Jazz to Summer Nights.

The festival will be hard-pressed to top this program in any future Broadway tributes.

Cirque: A Space Odyssey – Grant Park Music Festival – July 22, 2026

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Christopher Nolan’s epic movie wasn’t the only Odyssey playing in Chicago this week, as the Grant Park Music Festival presented Troupe Vertigo’s Cirque: A Space Odyssey. Though I haven’t seen the movie yet, I can’t imagine that Matt Damon, or his stunt double, Devyn Dalton, had to perform the kind of death-defying aerial acrobatics that the cirque performers did, high above the stage, without a net, unless they’re counting on the first row of the string section of the orchestra to help break any falls.

And, although Damon described Dalton as having “the greatest arms I’ve ever seen,” I doubt she can do the bent over backward, one-armed handstands that the troupe’s contortionist did while using her feet to take off and put back on her hat (my description doesn’t do her justice). And don’t even get me started on hair hanging (ouch!).

Moreover, while the infamous Hollywood accounting practices are a great example of juggling the books, let’s see those executives keep multiple balls in the air while swinging on a wire.

Not to be forgotten through all of this was the orchestra providing a cornucopia (like The Odyssey, arising out of Greek mythology) of musical excellence, ranging from DeBussy, movie scores and pop tunes, all the way to cartoon themes, in half the time it takes Damon to get home on the screen.

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – July 15, 2026

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Some people I know who have season tickets to the Grant Park Music Festival skipped this concert, I would guess out of concern for the heat. The weather was very warm, but not unbearable. The only thing that was too hot to handle was Michelle Cann’s virtuosity on the piano, which may have been why a couple of the bass players were wearing shorts on stage.

Cann, who I have seen and written about several times before, thrilled the crowd with her work on Ravel’s Piano Concerto, but what really set the place on fire was her encore, which wasn’t listed in the program, but, if I had to guess, was Hazel Scott’s arrangement of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C# Minor. I could practically see the smoke rising from the piano.

The orchestra opened with William Grant Still’s Festive Overture and closed with Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, both well-performed and well-received, but the night belonged to Cann, another in the list of must-see pianists the festival has presented this season.

250th Anniversary – In Case You Missed It – July 4, 2026

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Hallmark’s Anniversary Gifts by Year only goes through year 60, which seems somewhat short-sighted given extended life-expectancies, though I expect those numbers to start decreasing as the earth’s temperature continues to rise.

Still, we would be remiss in not celebrating America’s sesqui-something anniversary, so I am proposing, a little late, that the 250-year gift be potassium nitrate, a key component of fireworks, which is available in five-pound bags through Amazon.

The other supply problem is, of course, that China produces at least 90% of our fireworks and, you may have heard, there has been some tinkering with the tariffs on goods imported from there.

Nevertheless, the good news for fireworks aficionados, of which I am not one, was that the Taste of Chicago found enough funding to set off a display on July 10. The not-so-good news was that the nearby Grant Park Music Festival, in its infinite wisdom, delayed the start of its concert that evening by an hour and 45 minutes, so that instead of the fireworks starting, very appropriately, just after the music ended, the sky lit up, and the noise started, during the first movement of the orchestra’s otherwise beautiful rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony.

This faux pas did, however, allow guest conductor Leonard Slatkin to turn to the audience between movements and suggest, to a roar of approval, that the organizers had mistaken this work for the Tchaikovsky piece more often associated with fireworks.

I didn’t go to the actual Independence Day Salute a week earlier, but did attend its prior afternoon rehearsal, which not only allowed me to see concertmaster Jeremy Black get his moment in the sun with a couple wonderful solos, but also to listen to him playing them multiple times while the conductor tinkered with the orchestral accompaniment.

Grant Park Music Festival – Rehearsals are fun too – June 2026

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I went to the Tuesday, June 16th, free, late-morning rehearsal of Hayden’s Military Symphony in anticipation of possible bad weather for the next evening’s concert, which did provide the advantage of sitting wherever I wanted and moving around at will, which I took the opportunity to do, checking out the acoustics everywhere and moving in and out of the sun, but restraining myself from standing in the center aisle, jumping up and down and waving my arms trying to distract the musicians. I have too much class for that (and can’t jump) – but it sounds like fun, right?

As rain always seems to be forecast for Wednesdays, I went to rehearsal again on Tuesday June 23. Unfortunately, though I listened to two of the selections, I couldn’t stay for the Barber violin concerto, thereby forcing me to risk the weather the next evening, which held off long enough, but just, for me to see William Hagen perform brilliantly before the heavens opened up and the concert closed down.

Attending the rehearsal on Thursday, June 26, not out of fear of the forecast, but rather because it was outside and the performance itself was to be inside the next two evenings (more of a winter activity for me), I was treated to Sara Davis Buechner exuberantly playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1. It was interesting to observe her interaction with the conductor when he wanted the orchestra to repeat a section of the music. Shockingly, though she knew the music by heart, she had not committed the corresponding 1,625 measure numbers to memory (unlike prisoners telling jokes). Also, it allowed me, that evening, to watch the White Sox win 22-1 (what?!).

Grant Park Music Festival – June 19, 2026 (same performance playing on June 20)

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Prior to the “real” concert, there was a Young Artists Showcase Suzuki event, which I didn’t listen to and mention only on the off chance that the Cubs right fielder, who, as far as I know, does not play the violin, reads my blog and is related to Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, who invented the teaching method.

As is customary, conductor Giancarlo Guerrero received a standing ovation upon entering the stage. I think he’s great and a really nice guy, but nobody ever stood for me when I came to the office (or applauded for that matter), so I remained seated.

The Festival brings in one great pianist after another, this time Canadian Stewart Goodyear playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at a tempo I can only fantasize about, once I finish with all the other fantasies in line in front of it, like my lifelong quest to get on Jeopardy, even though my information retention abilities are fading faster than his hands were moving.

Goodyear gave us a fabulous encore from his own Callaloo Suite composition, the sound of which would have fit wonderfully with the West Side Story music from last week.

After intermission, the orchestra finished with Copland’s Symphony No. 3, which made me wonder about the coincidence of two number 3’s appearing on the same program (and another, by Rachmaninov coming up in July). I loved it except, not being familiar with it, I was faked out several times in the final movement, which kept seeming like it was about to end, only to rise from the dead. Fortunately, as noted earlier, my hands don’t move all that fast, so I didn’t prematurely start clapping before the actual coda.

Summer (Music) in the City – Five Concerts, Four Venues – June 9-14, 2026

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With construction going on at St. James Cathedral, this year’s weekly, Tuesday evening, summer Rush Hour Concerts have moved to Holy Name Cathedral, which I had never before entered, so I figured what the h – – -, oops, sorry, not in church. Very elegant. And the music, Price and Mozart, was good.

Another opening, another show at the 2026 Grant Park Music Festival in Millennium Park.  I dodged the rain before and after the performance, which affected attendance, but the orchestra also showed up, and the music was excellent, Tower, Bernstein and Barber. The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story made me wonder whether musician auditions include demonstrations of finger-snapping skills.

What a long, strange journey to get to that concert. It took me three and a half weeks of begging, and desperately going over people’s heads, to get my tickets when they didn’t arrive as scheduled because, I was told, of a “unique and quite astounding” software problem that affected only me.

I hadn’t been to the Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert for a few weeks, and the next time I go will be for the outdoor season, in the beautiful courtyard, but I made it a point to see Jennifer Woodrum (clarinet) and Marianne Parker (piano), who, as I’ve written before, impresses not just with her technical excellence, but also with her performance style. On this day, she also demonstrated her ambidextrous, page-turning abilities, having forgotten her foot pedal at home, which she knew I would razz her about afterward.

The weather that day remained too good to pass up, so I doubled up, heading back to Millennium Park for that night’s Grant Park Music Festival program, featuring Ives and Brahms, before leaving early so as to avoid having to listen to a mass of people making vocal noises from the stage during classical music.

Two days later I made my annual trek to the Old Town Art Fair, not to see the art, such as it is there, but rather to see local blues star Donna Herula and her band do their thing, which I expect to do more of this summer when they appear at Navy Pier.

Pre-Season Recital – Grant Park Music Festival – May 29, 2026

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The event took place at an undisclosed location, to you, not me. I was not loaded into an unmarked van with tinted windows by Festival agents with ear mics and taken blindfolded through the mean streets of Chicago. But, in the hope that I might someday be invited back to the same location, I’ll be discreet.

I was told that the attendees would be treated to “a performance by acclaimed pianist Clayton Stephenson.” Having seen Stephenson play brilliantly the last two summers at the Festival, that alone would have been enough to lure me in, but we also were promised spectacular views of the Chicago skyline, an impressive personal art collection, curated wines and abundant hors d’oeuvres.

All the promises were delivered upon. Stephenson entertained us with Pictures from an Exhibition and an encore of Take the A Train. The former was particularly appropriate given the massive collection lining the walls of the host’s gigantic four-story home, though I must say, heathen that I am, that I was more interested in the game room that included ping pong and pool tables, especially because none of the pool cues appeared to be warped, a first in my experience.

If you’re anywhere near Ulm, Germany, birthplace of Albert Einstein, in late June, try to catch Stephenson playing Gershwin with the Ulm Philharmonic Orchestra.

If I Only Had a Brain – Grant Park Music Festival – August 13, 2025

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As explained in the program, composer Chelsea Komschlies’s Mycelialore combines her interests in neuroscience and fungi. I would have preferred something that combined interests in timbre and rhythm.

Komschlies starts from saying that mushrooms have a root-like structure that can function like a human brain, and then wonders whether, if they “can remember and tell their own stories, what would they say and how would they sound?” Her musical answer led me to conclude, I don’t care. I wish conductor Giancarlo Guerrero had not waited for nearby sirens to die down before giving the down beat.

Fortunately, after 10 minutes of this fungal brain scan, pianist Clayton Stephenson and the orchestra cleansed the auditory cortex and nucleus accumbens with a terrific rendition of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1 that left Guerrero bouncing with joy at its conclusion.

Stephenson earned his standing ovation, but didn’t stop there, giving the audience a delightful encore with his performance of Art Tatum’s jazzy Tea for Two.

Last, but not least, we were treated to Saint-Saen’s Symphony No. 3, wherein, I am happy to report, an organ (not the brain) is used well as an accent, and not as a droning focal point, and certainly not as a representation of the communication skills of something related to athlete’s foot or fungal meningitis.

The Emperor’s New Clothes – Millennium Park – August 6, 2025

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This is not a piece about a fashion show, although I did go to one once at an El Crab Catcher restaurant in Kaanapali on Maui in the 1980’s, before blogs were invented.

The Price Quality Heuristic (PQH) suggests that the more expensive something is, the higher quality people will attach to it. I believe I saw this principle in action at the Joshua Bell concert at the Grant Park Music Festival.

The event was not on the original Festival schedule, which, along with higher prices for the paid seating, apparently thrust it into PQH territory.

The seats and lawn were filled by a crowd enormous enough to suggest the possibility of an underlying ploy to set up an immigration raid, but park security was unmasked, so I think not, especially since some potential attendees were turned away.

When Bell completed his playing with the, as always excellent, orchestra (augmented not by an encore, but rather by an endless string of curtain calls that strained credibility), he was given a rousing standing ovation, which I confess may have been people just wanting to stretch their legs, or in some way related to a new Presidential fitness test.

As for my thoughts about Bell’s performance, it was fine, worthing of a sitting ovation. It was not, in my opinion (and some others I spoke with) as good as that of Augustin Hadelich, who earlier in the season had thrilled us with his artistry in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (and played a fun encore).

Bell has been praised and criticized for his body movements while playing. He did remind me a little of the way Elaine Marie Benes dances, not that there’s anything wrong with that.